Bas-relief is a form of sculpture where carved or chiseled forms protrude partially and
shallowly from the background. Occupying an intermediate place between painting
and full 3D sculpture, bas-relief sculpture exploits properties of human visual
perception in order to maintain perceptually salient 3D information. In this paper, we
present two methods for automatic bas-relief generation from 3D digital shapes. Both
methods are inspired by techniques developed for high dynamic range image
compression and have the bilateral filter as the main ingredient. We demonstrate that
the methods are capable of preserving fine shape features and achieving good
compression without compromising the quality of surface details.
For artists, bas-relief generation starts from managing the viewer's point of view and
compositing the scene. Therefore we strive in our work to streamline this process by
focusing on easy and intuitive user interaction which is paramount to artistic
applications. Our algorithms allow for real time computation thanks to our
implementation on graphics hardware. Besides interactive production of stills, this
work offers the possibility for generating bas-relief animations. Last but not least, we
explore the generation of artistic reliefs that mimic cubism in painting.